Description:
Although Japanese laptop artist Nobukazu Takemura has been recording since the late 1980s, 10th is the first full-length British release to properly showcase his current incarnation as playful electronic abstractionist, specialising in a range of curious computer compositions that reject traditional dance rhythms for a more textured approach to sound. Mixing acoustic instrumentation, speech-synth vocals, glockenspiel, vibraphone, and a whole host of electronic whirrs, fizzes, and clicks together in his digital palette, Takemura paints vibrant and colourful washes of sound that lack the crisp clarity of much modern electronica, b
Although Japanese laptop artist Nobukazu Takemura has been recording since the late 1980s, 10th is the first full-length British release to properly showcase his current incarnation as playful electronic abstractionist, specialising in a range of curious computer compositions that reject traditional dance rhythms for a more textured approach to sound. Mixing acoustic instrumentation, speech-synth vocals, glockenspiel, vibraphone, and a whole host of electronic whirrs, fizzes, and clicks together in his digital palette, Takemura paints vibrant and colourful washes of sound that lack the crisp clarity of much modern electronica, but at their best, make up for it by conjuring a mood of affection and warmth. However, there are a number of tracks that irritate rather than soothe: the likes of "Lost Treasure" and "Croon" lean heavily on the speech-synth, a device similar to a vocoder that's more commonly used to enable the physically handicapped to communicate, but here features as vocalist-by-proxy. Still, that aside, for the most part 10th is a pleasantly undemanding listen, a new spin on the adventurous strain of easy-listening as practised by Mouse on Mars, Tortoise, and Jim O'Rourke. --Louis Pattison
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Manufacturer: Thrill Jockey
Release date: 24 February 2003
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0790377011821 UPC: 790377011821
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